My mother and I get on together well, and we have spirited discussions. Through speaking with her I crystallize my own ideas. Mostly I’m afraid, conversations is one-sided—I do most of the talking, admittedly. They say you don’t learn anything by talking, but that’s not necessarily true; through talking out your ideas you are better able to make solid and conscious hazy thought floating about helter-skelter. Writing does somewhat the same thing—most great writers evolved their ideas as they put them on paper, I suspect.
I told my mother of my great quandary over whether I should go back for more school, or direct my life elsewhere, back to newspapers, agency work or other. My big worry, I said, was to end up like Prof. Murray, a dusty traipsing through decades of classes, growing old in the desiccated clusters of the university pattern. She said, however, that that needn’t be the case, that I could combine teaching with time off for writing, or research or travel—and that, actually, university people have better opportunities to do that than people in other pursuits. Perhaps this is true.
Usually I guide my choices not on what would make me most happy but what would make me least discontented—because I’m never truly contented with anything. Along this line, university life would probably make me less discontented than the façade of agency work. There’s money in that, and money is not of no importance to me, I’ll admit—but, projecting my feelings 30 or 40 years in the future, would I be pleased with myself to say, “yes, I spent a life well, I made money and live among more objects.”
To look back at that kind of life would be disappointing. If we all need to try to create our own paradise here on earth—because who know what will come in the hereafter—to dedicate ourselves to objects seems not the best and brightest path. Then what is? That answer is still hazy. Perhaps there is no certain answer. But I believe there must be. It’s just that few people ever really find it. Some people, preoccupied with fixing the car, putting a new roof up, saving for that trailer, bringing up baby, throwing a party, watching the favorite TV show—some people never really look for it. It is they who are most content. Knowledge encourages discontent, I suspect. But perhaps not forever. Do wise old people find contentment? How about wise young people? There is no such thing.
—Jan. 12, 1986, Moorhead, Minnesota
OtD 